Chimney extension - safe to remove?

[jtag]

The 1st floor bathroom in my ~1900 terraced house has a chimney in the corner on an external wall. It doesn't extend down into the kitchen so I assume this has been removed at some point in the past.

Looking from above, it appears to have a ~40cm hollow extension on the side. Does anyone know what this is for? Is it purely decorative or did/does it serve a purpose?

Would I be able to remove this without any changing any structural supports/involving a BCO? The bricks for this extra part butt up against the back external wall but are interleaved with the front face of the chimney, so I could remove it and split the corner bricks but I don't want to bring the whole thing down!

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[tommyl18]

if there is nothing underneath it I would take it out anyway start from the top and work down try not to chisel the bricks where they tie into the brickwork incase you damge them cut them with a disc cutter